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I went to my parent’s house for Thanksgiving. It was pretty nice, and there were some deer outside the window on numerous occasions, so I took a picture of one.

It was nice to visit home, I think it’s been two or three years since I was last there. And boy has the place changed, new interstate interchanges, new shopping areas, more homes in the neighborhood where I grew up, all sorts of things. I spent much of the time relaxing, and eating delicious turkey, and watching some football.

But I had to come home sometime, because those late work nights won’t happen by themselves.

So, way back in spring I decided to shave my head (and then never post about it =) ). Here’s what I looked like then:

Then with winter coming, I started to grow it back:

Then a coworker (who also has shaved his head), suggested we do mohawks for halloween. And so, here’s me with a mohawk:

I don’t think I’m punk enough to pull it off, but I’m still gonna keep it till the weekend.

It was a weekend for parties. We had our yearly Christmas Party on Saturday, filled with games and Secret Santas. Quite a lot of fun, and got to try out some new games. I got a very nice Corvette book, a Corvette calendar, some DVDs, and more Sin City books. Sweet.

The next day was, of course, New Year’s Eve, and some of us packed ourselves into Jeff’s apartment to ring in the new year. We also played games (how could we not?), one of which was the semi-traditional drinking game. This year’s version was drinking to the movie Clue. Basically, everyone chose a suspect/weapon/room combo and took a drink whenever one of the three was mentioned. Not a game for the faint of heart, or the intolerant of alcohol.

On New Year’s Day itself, we hung out, watched a movie, played some games, and dreaded returning to work the next day. Except for Jeff, who went into work on New Year’s. All in all, a good time.

So I’m about halfway through my Christmas vacation. There’s nothing quite like having two weeks off of work to get things done. I’ve been relaxing, of course, but there’s always things to be done. I’ve been tidying my apartment, doing some shopping and getting ready for the holidays. Part of that last one involved whipping up a batch of snickerdoodles (recipe courtesy of Accidental Hedonist).

One big item that I’ve been getting off my todo list is watching all ten seasons of “Friends”, though I’m not marathoning it as I originally thought I might. I’m about halfway through, and enjoying it quite a lot. So many memories.

Tomorrow I plan to get up, have some cinnamon rolls for breakfast, open some presents, and then have a nice dinner with turkey, and mashed potatoes and such. Yummy!

In honor of it being my last week of work for the year, I’ve been browsing through iTunes for Christmas music, looking for particular versions of Christmas songs.

You see, growing up my parents had a tape of Christmas music that we’d always listen to around Christmas. I haven’t had any luck finding the precise album my parents had, but I’ve had good luck finding the specific songs (or at least they sound right to my memory). When you get right down to it, though, one version of “White Christmas” has a lot in common with every other version of “White Christmas”. And so it’s just a matter of trying to decide if the song’s tempo and the singer’s voice is the same as my memory.

I’ve had good luck following the mantra of “When in doubt, choose the Bing Crosby version.”

Tonight, after putting it off for several days, this year’s version of the White Ribbon Christmas Ale is being brewed up. Being a Christmas Ale, it should really be done in time for Christmas, so sooner is definitely better. I really should have taken care of it sooner, but it was a busy week last week, and I ended up getting other things done.

At any rate, one of the coolest parts of the White Ribbon this year is that it’s the first time we’ve revisited an old recipe. It’s been “New! New! New!” since brewing began last year. I’m curious to see if the changes I’ve made to the recipe come closer to what I’m aiming for than last year’s was. Not to say that I disliked last year’s White Ribbon, of course. It was pretty good, I was just looking for something with a bit more gingerbread character (I may not be fully satisfied on that side of things until I do an all-grain version of the White Ribbon).

So, in that vein, several key spice ingredients were increased in quantity. The grain bill got completely revamped as well, since White Ribbon ‘05 was based on a kit recipe. There’s also going to be both brown sugar and molasses (versus only molasses last year) for flavor and to kick the ABV up over 7%. The hops used will also be different, as will the yeast. I didn’t get exactly the yeast I really wanted, but that’s often the case when buying locally. I’ve also changed a few process related things, to say nothing of the greater experience I have now.

All in all, White Ribbon ‘06 is shaping up to be a pretty good beer. We’ll see how it goes over in the local crowd.